"Taken from you by some prowling nightbird as you lay unconscious. Which pocket did you place them in?"
"In the breast pocket of my inner coat. Bah, why argue over it?"
"You would be prepared to swear that in a court of law?"
"Well, perhaps not," Maitrank admitted. "But I had them in my possession."
"Then search once more--look everywhere. You might have changed them from one pocket to the other quite unconsciously. Be quick, because I have sent for a doctor to examine you."
"Keep the doctor to yourself," Maitrank snapped. "I'm all right. See, there is nothing in any of my pockets. My overcoat could not----"
He paused with a dazed expression as he produced from his big coat a handful of what looked like streaming fire. He gave a glad cry, the cry of a mother who has found some child that she deemed to be lost. He carried the stones to his lips and kissed them.
"I must have changed them," he sobbed. "I changed them and forgot; perhaps I had them in my hands looking at the beauties."
"Bah, you grow old, you get senile," Balmayne said contemptuously. "You have had an experience tonight that should be a warning to you. Now put it to yourself. We try to rob you--you, above all men in the world, who hold us in the hollow of your hands. Surely you pay us a very poor compliment! Our cue is to conciliate you, to find other victims to pay what we owe you and keep you silent. Once you are satisfied you will never tell--you will enjoy the sport of seeing others bitten too well. But you keep a carriage in the future and have no more fits in the street."
Maitrank grinned in sinister fashion.